Easy Come - Easy Go

I think the title really speaks for itself -- as you will soon understand. But, first things first.

Hi. My name is Dustin. I'm 26 years old, a recent college graduate, and I find myself in a new location - a couple hundred miles from the place I last called home - embarking on a journey that has yet to be beneficial. Oh, I admit, not everything about the move has been negative. My job has its perks. Monday-Friday, no weekends or Holidays. That's good stuff. However, making friends has become somewhat of a challenge. Well, not so much making friends and meeting people as much as retaining those friendships. People here are strange. Let me explain.

The first week I was here I met someone who seemed like a nice guy. We hung out a couple times and I thought I was going to have a new friend. Unbeknown to me, this was going to be short lived. As you can imagine, with any new job, it takes time to learn policy and procedure. I spent the first week working longer hours than needed to insure what I was doing was correct. Finally, the weekend rolled around and I called this "so called friend" to see if he wanted to chill. Apparently he had deleted my contact information because "that's what I do when I don't hear from people in a long time." Wow. One week. Didn't know that constituted an eternity. Not a huge deal -- I got over it.

The next weekend I decided to see what the night life in this city held. Well, good news - or so I thought. I went to the bar, met a couple guys who invited me to run around with them. We had a great time. That's when I found out that neither of them lived in the area, they were just visiting for the weekend, and thus, I was back to square one. A little discouraged, I decided not to let this get me down.

The month filtered by and I spent a lot of time at home by myself. Hitting the chat rooms on occasion - I know, how cliche - eventually I met a new group of people. A guy and his 2 lady friends. They were nice. We all met at a pizza bar one evening and just had a nice time talking -- getting to know each other. I'm thinking to myself "great, people that can help me network." The next few weeks passed and occasionally I joined them at their pad for company and conversation. That too was short lived. As quickly as it came, it went. I messaged them and continuously got the same response: we need to hang out soon. But that was it. It's now been 3 weeks and I haven't heard a word from any of them.

I began wondering if maybe it was me. Was I saying something or doing something that pushed them away from me? Is there a black cloud hovering over my head that warns people to keep their distance? No, that's certainly not the case. I'm a nice guy -- I have many friends -- I'm a good person. I refuse to let it be me. So, it's back to the beginning. It's time to take a different approach. I don't quite know what that approach will be, but I will not let this streak of bad luck get the best of me.